When Robert Elms met Gabriel Garíca Marquez

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Falling in love with the novel Love in the Time of Cholera at the same time as I became hopelessly enamoured with the woman who became my wife was the reason that I ended up spending 12 weeks in Cartagena 12 years ago. Our own relationship had been pretty febrile and the tropical city of García M?rquez’s masterpiece seemed like the perfect setting for our honeymoon.

So I rented an 18th-century Spanish colonial house and moved in with my beautiful bride and a plan to write a novel of my own. On the second night I did what all aspiring